Interim Report on city overtime - may 2018

We prepared this memorandum in response to a request from the chair of the Finance/Executive Committee to use during budget deliberations. The purpose of this memo is to communicate initial results from our performance audit of citywide overtime. We reviewed patterns in overtime spending citywide, by department, and by employee, and began examining controls over the use and distribution of overtime. We reviewed city and department expenses between FY13–FY17 and employee overtime earnings in CY16 and CY17. We plan to release the full report in October.

We found:

Citywide overtime expenses have increased each year over the past five years, more than doubling from FY13 to FY17

Almost all overtime expense occurred in six city departments, with the Atlanta Police department accounting for nearly half of FY17 overtime expense

The city does not appear to budget appropriately for overtime—budgeted amounts increased 18% from FY13 to FY17, while overtime expenses increased 106%

The administration reports that recent efforts have reduced total overtime costs